Boston Attacks Complicate Immigration Debate

By

Sara Murray,

Siobhan Hughes and

Peter Nicholas

Updated April 19, 2013 6:53 p.m. ET

The hunt for foreign-born suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings added a new layer of complexity to the drive to overhaul immigration laws, as lawmakers said Friday the attacks offered a new reason to scrutinize the shortcomings of the U.S. immigration system and include new security measures.

Two brothers, legal immigrants from Chechnya, are suspected of carrying out the bombings. That has prompted some lawmakers—particularly those skeptical of a proposed redrafting of immigration laws—to call for additional emphasis on security in the bill.

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Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), who is wary of the proposed immigration-law overhaul, said learning more about the Boston suspects would shed light on what he views as weaknesses in the immigration system.

"How can individuals evade authority and plan such attacks on our soil?'' Mr. Grassley asked at a Senate hearing. "How can we beef up security checks on people who wish to enter the United States?"

Supporters of the legislation, which was unveiled in the Senate just days after Monday's bombings, argued that it would strengthen security by requiring more surveillance and fencing along the border with Mexico and by collecting more information from immigrants.

The bill also would create a system to track immigrants with visas as they exit the country, intended to give officials a better picture of immigrants who remain.

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"We didn't start off to make this a security bill, but it's certainly a major part of it,'' said Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), who helped craft the legislation. "And I think once people realize what we've done, they'll understand that doing nothing leaves us more vulnerable."

Both suspects in the Boston bombing were in the U.S. legally, according to law-enforcement officials.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old still at large Friday afternoon, came to the U.S. with at least one parent in 2002, when he was about age 9, officials said. The family applied for asylum after arriving and was granted permanent legal residence in the U.S. in 2007, an official said.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev became a U.S. citizen on Sept. 11, 2012, the official said. His brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the 26-year-old killed in a confrontation with police early Friday, came in 2003 or 2004, when he was about age 18, and was a permanent legal resident, officials said.

The events in Boston could put more focus on measures to obtain additional biometric identification from immigrants, such as fingerprints and other personal signatures.

Immigration Law in America

"Security is a key issue," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), a critic of the immigration bill, who has advocated for high-tech biometric identification cards. "That's basically been promised and it's never been delivered on," he said.

The Senate bill calls for tamper-proof Social Security cards and pushes to collect additional information from immigrants, but it stops short of requiring a full-fledged biometric I.D. system.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), one of the authors of the proposed immigration overhaul, said he welcomed a push for more biometric information. "The more the better," he said. But he also cautioned against letting the legal status of the two suspects cause a backlash against immigration.

"You can't just say no one can ever come to the country,'' Mr. Graham said. "So, if they came here legally and they got radicalized, that's no different to me than being born here and getting radicalized."

Essay

It is unclear whether any type of immigration-related security measures could have made a difference in the Boston case, given how much time had passed since the men arrived in the U.S.

Doris Meissner, a former commissioner of the federal agency once known as the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, who now is at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, saw little connection between the brothers' Chechen heritage and the Senate's immigration law.

"You can have perfectly effective screening processes and admissions processes and not in any way be able to predict behavior a decade forward," she said.

Some people who study immigration predicted little impact from the events in Boston on public opinion about immigrants.

In a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey, 54% said they believe immigration strengthens the U.S., compared with 36% who said it weakens the country. An even larger majority said they were in favor of creating a path to citizenship for the millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, the poll found.

"When I think about the bomb in Boston, I would expect that we're not going to see a national and permanent shift in sentiments about immigrants," said Joscha Legewie, a Columbia University Ph.D. candidate in sociology who researched the link between terrorist events and European attitudes on immigration. "Instead, we might see a temporary but small national effect."

The Boston attacks threaten to complicate President Barack Obama's broader policy agenda. The president is already grappling with a compressed calendar for moving his priorities through Congress, the immigration overhaul among them, as lawmakers next year will focus on the midterm elections, and soon afterward on the 2016 presidential campaign.

Mr. Obama has already devoted time to an unsuccessful push to tighten gun laws. He is looking to pass an early-childhood education plan, an infrastructure program and other measures through Congress.

Past presidents have grappled with unwanted national security crises with mixed results.

President George W. Bush signaled his intention to make education a chief focus when he sent a sweeping bill to Congress in his first week in office. But the September 11 attacks and the Iraq war came to dominate his presidency.

The Oklahoma City bombing occurred in the latter part of Bill Clinton's first term. The following year, Mr. Clinton signed into law a welfare overhaul that was one of the defining acts of his presidency.

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